On Sunday, a bunch of famous people gathered in a large auditorium and patted themselves on the back for succeeding. They received awards for their work, offered to share those awards with their fellow workers, and then retreated to parties where they danced and drank and held their shiny statues. Thank god: Awards season is upon us at long last.

On this week’s episode of DirtCast, Madeleine Davies and I talk with Vulture staff writer E. Alex Jung about the performative wokeness of this year’s Emmy Awards, the ridiculousness of drawing a line between TV actors and movie actors and how maybe, just maybe, the Emmys are the “red-headed stepchild of the Oscars.”

As the Emmy Awards are technically television’s equivalent of the Academy Awards, it’s strange how the stakes feel so much lower, when you consider that we have been in the grips of Peak TV for some time, starting with The Sopranos and reaching its apex somewhere around Breaking Bad. But with streaming platforms Netflix throwing money at critical darlings and flops alike, taking a deep breath and hoping it works, the market is oversaturated, and Jung thinks the golden age of television could be nearing its end.

“Now I think we’ve definitely plateaued, if not just on the downward slope to hell.”

Our show is produced by Levi Sharpe with editorial oversight by Kate Dries. Mandana Mofidi is our Executive Director of Audio. Our theme music is by Stuart Wood. This episode was mixed by Corey Schreppel. Listen to our politics podcast, Big Time Dicks, here.